Life with Chronic Conditions: Is your phone contributing to your anxiety?

I recently listened to Jonathan Haidt on the Plague of Anxiety Affecting Young People on the New Yorker Radio Hour. While his focus was on Gen Z, many people are wired to their phones and instead of the phone working for them, they are a slave to the dinging of their notification bell.  

For those affected by chronic conditions, smart phones can be a real plus. In fact I wrote a post in 2021 Life with Chronic Conditions in the Time of Covid: Use your Smart Phone for Better Health. These can be great ways to connect with your support group, have apps that help you relax and be mindful, exercise, track your exercising and so forth. But there can be too much of a good thing. Between telemed visits, meetings,  zoom etc. etc. you can quickly overload. If you find your phone has become a source of stress, consider the following ways to reduce the stress while keeping the benefits of having a smart phone. 

 

• Don’t take your phone to bed. Leave it in another room and out of ear shot. You need your sleep and your phone and other electronic devices can be very disruptive. The National Sleep Foundation recommends you stop using phones, computers or televisions at least 30 minutes before bedtime and eliminating electronics from the bedroom.  

 

• Create no phone zones-such as the dinner table, doctor’s office, being out with friends, having a spa day etc. Turn your phone off or leave it in the car or someplace where you can’t quickly pick it up or hear it ding. 

 

• Delete social apps like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit from your phone as these can be unnecessary time sucks, it shares your using data and not for your betterment and it can make you highly anxious. Checking social media once a day or every few days is more than sufficient.

 

• Reduce notifications you are receiving. Apps and websites often send notifications. Choose which apps and contacts are important enough to notify you and disable the rest. You can also use the "do not disturb" mode on your phone or computer to silence all notifications for a certain period (especially at night). Most smartphones come with a sleep mode – use it! 

 

• Set a ring tone for those people you know you’ll want to talk to and ignore the rest.

 

• Find other ways to use your time, instead of playing games or scrolling through social media apps. 

 

Check out the following video How to Break Up with Your Phone, which helps to understand why we are addicted to our phones, how it effects our brain and suggests ways to improve our relationship with our phones.